Arrest made in latest murder at The Lit in Brockton

Judge James Michael Sullivan ordered Kierft Noel held without bail during his arraignment in Brockton District Court late Wednesday afternoon. Noel is charged with murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and carrying a loaded firearm. He is due back in court on May 27.

BROCKTON – Kierft Noel of Brockton walked into The Lit bar on Ames Street through a back door, raised his arm and pointed a black revolver at 22-year-old Elson G. Miranda and fired two shots, killing him, a prosecutor said in court Wednesday.

A bleeding Miranda, who had been having a beer, then called out to bar patrons for help.

“Somebody help me, I’m dying,” prosecutor Jeremy Beth Kusmin told the court in recounting Miranda’s final words, after the brazen daytime shooting inside the bar shortly before 12:30 p.m. on April 11.

Wearing a blue shirt with his handcuffed hands clutching his face, the 22-year-old Noel stood next to his defense attorney as the prosecutor outlined details of the slaying.

Judge James Michael Sullivan ordered Noel held without bail during his arraignment in Brockton District Court late Wednesday afternoon. Noel is charged with murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and carrying a loaded firearm. He is due back in court on May 27.

Defense attorney Louis M. Badwey did not speak on his client’s behalf during the arraignment. Badwey declined comment after the arraignment.

Minutes before the murder, at 12:13 p.m., and again about five minutes later, surveillance video captured a vehicle fitting the description of a car registered to Noel’s mother, a gray Nissan Maxima, driving past The Lit, Kusmin said.

About 12:23 p.m., the Maxima entered the rear parking lot of The Lit. The shooter is seen talking on his cell phone and then, a few minutes later, entering the bar through a rear door, a T-shirt covering his face, Kusmin said.

Witnesses told authorities the shooter quickly ran out of The Lit’s back door, jumped a chain-link fence, and then jumped into the driver’s side of a gray car, the engine running, and drove off, Kusmin said.

“The kid never looked back,” Kusmin told the court in recounting what one witness told police.

Kusmin described a contentious relationship between Noel and Miranda, the victim. The two reportedly grew up together on the city’s north side. Miranda and two other men had earlier robbed Noel of his wristwatch, money and other property on an earlier, unspecified date, Kusmin said, recounting statements made to authorities by confidential informants.

Miranda eventually returned Noel’s wristwatch. But Noel, while in jail on an unrelated gun charge, allegedly told others that he planned to kill Miranda when he got out of jail, Kusmin said, recounting statements made to authorities by confidential informants.

Miranda and Noel had a fistfight sometime after August 2013, after Noel got out of jail, according to Kusmin and the victim’s family. Miranda’s mother, Laurinda Goncalves of Brockton, showed a reporter a photograph of Miranda’s bruised and cut hand, a photograph that she said her son had posted on Instagram after the fight. She believes his slaying may have been retaliation for the fight.

Page 2 of 2 - Goncalves, 43, also displayed a text that her son sent to her about an hour before he was killed. The text read: “Can you call me?”

As she waited for Noel’s arraignment, Goncalves broke down outside the courtroom.

“I don’t know why! I don’t know why!” she wailed while crouching to the floor, as other relatives tried to console her.

“I love my son!” she cried.

The shooting prompted city hearings over the embattled bar, which has been the scene of previous violence, forcing the owner to agree to shutter it and sell the property.

Also on Wednesday, in nearby Brockton Superior Court, Kent Johnson of Falmouth and Rodney Finch of Brockton are standing trial in the fatal beating of 41-year-old Brian Bishop. The incident took place at the The Lit in 2012.